EHF NEWS 27 – 28.02.2007

2008 Men's European Championship in (17 to 27 January 2008)

euro 2008 in Norway PREVIEW – DRAW FOR FINAL TOURNAMENT

The 8th Men’s European Championship in Norway, which will be held from 7 to 27 January 2008 is fast approaching. Following the 2007 Men’s World Championship in Germany, which finished just a few weeks ago, euro 2008 will be the next big handball event in Europe.

All teams participating in euro 2008 will be fixed after the second round of the play-off matches, which takes place on 16/17 June 2007. The 1st leg will be played on 9/10 June 2007.

The teams participating in the play-offs consist of those which have qualified directly (World Championship participants) and those who won their ticket from the qualification groups in January:

Qualified for Euro 2008: FRA, ESP, DEN, CRO, GER, RUS, NOR; Play-offs: POL/NED LTU/HUN, UKR/SVK, SLO/MKD, LAT/CZE, BLR/SUI, SWE/ROM, POR/MNE, SRB/ISL;

For details regarding the qualification groups please click on the links which are enclosed in this mailing or on the EHF Website: www.eurohandball.com. The euro 2008 website: www.ehf-euro.com will be online as of March 2007. For all those who are interested in tickets for the upcoming European Championship, please register for the ticketing newsletter at www.handball.no– Euro 2008 ticket sales will be sold online. The accreditation procedure for media representatives will be done online at the event website at www.ehf-euro.com, and starts on 3 September 2007 (deadline for euro 2008 accreditation is 30 November 2007).

The draw for euro 2008 will take place on

Saturday, 23 June 2007 19:00 hrs. in Tjøme, close to Tønsberg, Norway

The draw event will be transmitted in Norway on TV2 – the euro 2008 Host Broadcaster (at approx.. 20:00 hrs.) and will be available to other participating nations, it will also be sent out live in the form of web streaming. Details will be announced in due time prior to the euro 2008 Draw Event.

More detailed information on the draw, as well as special invitations for the event, will be provided by the Norwegian Handball Federation/Norwegian Organising Committee. In addition to this, the websites listed above will serve as a communication source for up-to- date information on euro 2008 and the draw event.

Below you can find the technical procedure on the euro 2008 draw. There will be further euro 2008 news editions in the run-up to the championship.

2008 Men's European Championship in Norway (17 to 27 January 2008)

euro 2008 - Draw Procedure for the F I N A L T O U R N A M E N T

Date: Saturday, 23 June 2007 Time: 19:00 hrs. Venue: Tjøme, close to Tønsberg

Total number of participating teams: 16 teams

Directly Qualified for euro 2008:

¾ FRA: Defending Champion ¾ NOR: Organiser ¾ ESP, DEN, CRO, GER, RUS: teams ranked 2-6 at euro06 in Switzerland

Qualified from the Play off matches: SRB/ISL, SLO/MKD, POL/NED, UKR/SVK, (9/10 and 16/17 June 2007) LTU/HUN, BLR/SUI, POR/MNE, SWE/ROM, LAT/CZE;

Draw for euro 2008 Final Tournament – Preliminary Round:

The participating teams are seeded as follows:

POT 1: FRA, ESP, DEN, CRO POT 3: POL/NED, NOR, UKR/SVK, LTU/HUN

POT 2: GER, RUS, SRB/ISL, POT 4: BLR/SUI, POR/MNE, SLO/MKD SWE/ROM, LAT/CZE

Procedure for the draw:

Group A Group B Group C Group D 4th step teams of pot 3 are drawn ⇑ to row 3* 3rd step teams of pot 1 are drawn ⇑ to row 1 2nd step teams of pot 2 are drawn ⇑ to row 2 1st step teams of pot 4 are drawn to row 4

* The organiser NOR (pot 3) has the right to choose the group after the rows 4, 2 and 1 are determined.

The euro 2008 Final Tournament will take place 17 to 27 January 2008.

euro 2008 venues:

PRELIMINARY ROUND: MAIN ROUND: SEMIFINALS, FINALS AND 9 Bergen PLACEMENT MATCH 5/6 9 Drammen 9 Stavanger 9 Stavanger 9 Trondheim 9 Trondheim 9

EUROPEAN HANDBALL FEDERATION